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Boon Mee

^
On its way up though and the surge is working...much to the disappointment of the democrats and bleeding-heart liberals.

A significant portion of the population is completely invested in making sure that America suffers a significant military defeat at the hands of an enemy who is acceptable to do things like this; and this.

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keda

Doesn't mention the important % of brainless and fence clingers.

Either way, as with most polls provoked by a none too subtle agenda, it would be interesting to have the wording, but being the NYT that's probably a minor detail.

AntRobertson

Frankly that's an utterly silly thing to suggest much less actually state.

The Republican party line/propoganda (take your pick) that's trotted out to obsucure the real reasons there is sentiments against the war. Much easier to drown it out by screaming 'un-American!' than address the legitimate issues raised. It is emminently possible to be opposed to the war on grounds other than wanting to see the US 'lose" you know.

keda

^^ BM, those links imply we're dealing with savages, without considering the fair argument that the kids are diverted to allah the compassionate and merciful without having to suffer the trials of life. We ought to praise such tactics, and scorn the blinkered.

Anyway, as we know, not all muslims are savages, only those that compel kids to grow up.

stroller

This doesn't make much sense, keda.

Talking to the "PC-brigade", the "BHB" and whatever else is hiding in the recesses of your mind again?

Boon Mee

Right...
Lots of folks suffer from a totally debilitating disorder called Severe Acquired Leftist Anencephalic Dementia or SALAD for short...

stroller

I don't think keda is a leftist, but "SALAD" - nice!

keda

Dusting out a few cobwebs. Otoh, could say what I really think, but this is issues.

sabang

Short memory.
The surge is not yet working, but it looks better in the last month. Or less of a failure.
We will see, but the American failure in Iraq ia already manifest.
If some sort of order can be put on the ground there, I guess that is the best that can be hoped for.

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To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.

sabang

The calamity of disregard



It is now chillingly clear: MI6's pre-Iraq warnings were swept aside by an obsessed White House

Richard Norton-Taylor
Saturday August 4, 2007
The Guardian



In the run-up to war, senior British security and intelligence officials as well as diplomats made it clear that they were strongly opposed to the invasion of Iraq - though not clear enough. Why now, why Iraq, they asked; it would merely increase the terrorist threat, as the joint intelligence committee warned ministers less than a month before British troops and bombers joined the US attack on the country. Concern in Whitehall was shared by some perspicacious Americans, including General Tony Zinni, the former head of US central command, which is responsible for operations throughout the Middle East. He called it the wrong war, fought in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Now comes fresh evidence that senior British officials tried to persuade the Bush administration to keep off Iraq and concentrate on Afghanistan, the real source of terrorist violence inspired by al-Qaida. On the Brink, the newly published memoirs of Tyler Drumheller - the CIA's chief of clandestine operations in Europe until 2005 - tells of a meeting on September 12 2001. The day after al-Qaida's attacks on America, George Tenet, then CIA director, met three British guests - Sir David Manning, then Tony Blair's foreign policy adviser; Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6; and Eliza Manningham-Buller, then head of MI5. "I hope we can all agree that we should concentrate on Afghanistan and not be tempted to launch any attacks on Iraq," Drumheller quotes the leader of the British delegation as telling Tenet.

In a recent article in the New York Review of Books on Tenet's autobiography, At the Center of the Storm, Thomas Powers points out that Tenet names his British guests but omits what was said at the meeting - while Drumheller reports what was said but was prevented by the CIA (which did not want to upset the British) from identifying who said it.

Powers says the appeal not to attack Iraq came from Manning. Drumheller does not dispute that. In his book he says Tenet responded to Manning by saying: "Absolutely, we all agree on that. Some might want to link the issues, but none of us wants to go that route."

A few days later, a group of diplomats and MI6 officers met their American counterparts at a lunch at the British embassy in Washington. Again MI6 expressed concern that the Bush administration had Iraq in its sights. A senior official (Drumheller, obeying instructions, does not identify the official or his nationality) went further, inquiring what the CIA was going to do once the US had "hit the mercury with the hammer in Afghanistan and the al-Qaida cadre has spread all over the world". The official asked: "Aren't you concerned about the potential destabilising effect on Middle Eastern countries?"

Questioned last week about just how far MI6 and other British officials tried to apply pressure on the Americans, Drumheller told the Guardian: "I think the British did everything they could to keep the US focused on Afghanistan. They understood Iraq much better than we did." One of the things they understood was that there was no link between al-Qaida and Saddam, an assertion made against all the evidence by Dick Cheney and his circle.

The worrying, even terrifying, thing about these and other accounts by former CIA officers is the ease with which America's intelligence agency was swept aside by cliques in the White House and the Pentagon intent on war. The CIA's weakness had a knock-on effect on MI6 as both agencies became victims of the blind determination of their respective political masters.
The Bush administration's obsession with Iraq, and Blair's failure to do anything about it, left a dangerous vacuum in Afghanistan. The Taliban was allowed to fill it, and British soldiers continue to be killed there.


· Richard Norton-Taylor is the Guardian's security affairs editor
richard.norton-taylor[at]guardian.co.uk
Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | The calamity of disregard

raycarey

does anyone here have any idea where those 190,000 AK-47s and handguns disappeared to?

raycarey

i just got a red from earl for the above post....with comments about putting guns in my ass. very strange indeed....but then again, what type of person would consider patong beach to be 'paradise'?
sad really.

AntRobertson

You too huh, he gave me one as well - "Have mo red".

I think he see's 'reds' as a substitute for intelligent, reasonable and rational discourse. He clearly finds them easier in any event.

Boon Mee

The Associated Press has noticed that some Democrats have noticed that the "surge" is producing results on the ground in Iraq:

"One senator said U.S. troops are routing out al-Qaida in parts of Iraq. Another insisted President Bush's plan to increase troops has caused tactical momentum.

One even went so far on Wednesday as to say the argument could be made that U.S. troops are winning.

These are not Bush-backing GOP die-hards, but Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin, Bob Casey and Jack Reed. Even Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee, said progress was being made by soldiers.

The suggestions by them and other Democrats in recent days that at least a portion of Bush's strategy in Iraq is working is somewhat surprising, considering the bitter exchanges on Capitol Hill between the Democratic majority and Republicans and Bush. Democrats have long said Bush's policies have been nothing more than a complete failure."

mHeh...

raycarey

you do realize that the US is arming the sunni insurgents, right?

mheh...

Boon Mee

Yes, it's called 'realpolitik'.

AntRobertson

Boon Mee seems to have missed the rest of the article, because that's not all "The Associated Press" (actually, Kimberley Hefling, an 'Associated Press Writer') had to say:

So in summary, pouring further troops into the region is working (in other breaking news the sky is blue) but any 'gains' are being severely curtailed and even made redundant for the very same reason as they always have been - an ineffectual policy by the Bush administration. Plus ca change...

AntRobertson

Actually it's called deja vu. They used to arm Saddam as well. Seems to be the familiar pattern... arm a dictator, get angry with him, arm other dictators...

raycarey